Howdy! This survey concerns zine libraries and what should/should not be archived. I’m a zine-maker and a master’s student in library science- it’s for a project and I could use your input! Survey monkey, anonymous, you can do it in under a minute.

Hi Billy- Thanks for taking it and thanks for the feedback. Yup- it is limiting, sort of by design- I’m trying to get at how people feel about having their zines archived, particularly in searchable online databases. My thought is that some zinesters may be sharing sensitive info in zines that aren’t intended for a wider audience, and that online archives might be a violation of privacy to some degree. I got some interesting results from the survey, but you are right- I really need to redesign it and re-word the questions and distribute it again to get clearer data. This was my first modest attempt. From the somewhat limited sampling, it seems like most people are actually okay with online archiving without permission, so my assumption may be totally wrong. However, 1/2 the sampling were readers not creators- so right there, I can see that I need o do a survey for creators only to get a legit outcome.

I’ll post the results for people to check out, and maybe I can get feedback from people before trying it again. Thanks again!!

Cool. That makes sense. But like, you just said that half your sampling was by readers, not creators, but that’s part of what I found limiting; i’m a reader AND creator. The most limiting part of the survey was only being able to choose one answer per question.

Zines I create, I don’t mind them being archived. I love that idea, actually. But some zines have more sensitive info than others, some zines i love the idea of being searchable, other zines not so much. Some zines I’ve put out under different names, and I’m sure it’s possible to track those down and tie them together, but I’d rather no one ever do that! ha.

But as a reader, I can’t say what other people want done with their zines.

For me, once you create a zine that is for sale, it’s public information. If you make 10 copies an hand them to friends, maybe that’s not the case, but once you make a product to sell, to friends or to strangers equally, then that’s public information, and anything in it is public. Not everyone feels that way.